May Notes - GO BLAZERS!

“It has given me great joy to find…your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us.”
2 John 1:4

Screen Free Week: Little Lambs is participating in Screen Free Week again this year; information is in your child’s cubby. For more on this topic and the organization behind it, visit www.screenfree.org or www.commercialfreechildhood.org

Jog-A-Thon and Library Field Trip: Wednesday, May 7th (weather permitting) will be our second annual Jog-A-Thon to benefit the Aloha Community Library. The children will run laps at the park, and Little Lambs will donate $1 per lap to the library. The library has a matching grant available through the end of May, so every dollar we raise will be doubled! Parents are welcome to sponsor their child or make a donation as well, but it’s totally optional. On Wednesday, May 14th, we will have a short field trip to the library to present our donation and join their story time. We will need a few drivers for this, so please talk with a teacher if you are able to help that morning. If you would like to learn more about the library, visit www.alohalibrary.org

Parent/Teacher Conferences: Conferences will be held Tuesday, May 13th – Thursday, May 15th. A sign-up sheet is posted in the classroom for any parent who would like to schedule a conference for their child. Reminders will be sent home next week.

Memorial Day Closures:  Little Lambs will be closed Friday, May 23rd for staff development and Monday, May 26th for the Memorial Day holiday.

Kindergarten Graduation: We will celebrate our graduating Kindergarten students on Thursday, June 5th at 7:00pm. This is a special evening just for our Kindergarten class and their families.

End of School:  The children will have a small “carnival” on Monday, June 9th at school.  We can always use extra helpers on this morning, so if you would like to join us, please speak with a teacher.  The last day of school is Wednesday, June 11th.    We will have school as usual in the morning, and there will be a barbecue dinner at school for all families that evening.  At 6:00pm we will take a few moments to recognize the children’s accomplishments and to say “Goodbye” to students who are moving on to other schools.  Dinner will be served after.  Little Lambs will provide the meal; you just need to bring your appetite!

Classroom notes: Here are some highlights from our past month:
Literacy: We have read an enormous amount of books the past month…our bookshelf keeps filling up quickly! We have been working on recognizing the difference between fiction and non-fiction, as well as making predictions about a story based on the cover and title. As always, the children also work on treating books respectfully and carefully. We can proudly tell you that all of the Kindergarten children are reading at least at a full grade level above their ages. It has been amazing to watch this group of readers develop! Our Kindergarten students also have been doing a lot of independent writing as they create their own fiction stories about dogs and cats. In addition, they have learned to recognize and label nouns and will soon move on to verbs and adjectives.

Math: There has been a math explosion in the classroom this past month. The children are all making great progress, in all their various appropriate levels. The concept of place value is now solid for most of the children, along with the ideas of ordinal numbers and addition. Older children have been working with concepts of subtraction and multiplication. The whole class worked on counting by fives as we kept track of the date on the calendar. Can your child tell you which umbrellas were yellow? The Kindergarten children are working on addition into the thousands and doing extensive work with our gold bead system.

Science: We have wrapped up our solar system study, and soon you will see the completed Kindergarten solar systems on display. They have worked so hard! We are also coming to the end of our animal study for the year as we spend our last few weeks of school studying insects. Can your child tell you about our friend Mr. Fab? The next time you are in, you will be able to find Mr. Fab on the classroom wall. Watch for details about an upcoming field trip to the pet store! Our Kindergarten class enjoyed a beautiful trip to the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals as part of our rock study. The weather was amazing, the museum was fascinating, and after two hours, the children still didn't want to leave! Our final weeks of school will also find us studying food/bodies/the five senses. We will talk about good ways to keep our bodies healthy, just in time for summer fun!

Social Studies: We continue to look at communities around the world and at the people in our own community right here. We are exploring ways we are alike and ways we are different as we model and discuss the fruits of the Spirit and how they allow God to build up our community into a good place.

Music: The children provided an incredible performance in our “Children Around The World” program in April. We were so proud of them! Now they are enjoying making music with the instruments, singing every silly song they’ve learned and gaining control over their bodies through music and movement with scarves and movement on the line. They’re always excited when the conga drum comes out of hiding!

Parenting Thought:  Just as we did last year with summer approaching, we encourage you to think about the types of activities your children will have access to during this break from school.  Our plea to you as teachers is that you allow your children to do the following three things this summer:

1. PLAY HARD.  Let them get messy, dirty and sweaty.  Let them try and fail and try again at some new skill, such as bike riding, jumping rope, skipping, catching a ball, etc.
2.  READ.  Alone, with a parent, with a sibling, at a story time.  This is a perfect age to instill a lifelong love of reading, and many libraries and bookstores have free summer reading programs in place to reward children for their efforts. 
3. ENJOY SILENCE.  Children are so bombarded by noise and other stimuli in today’s world that they are losing the ability to appreciate and accept silence.  Allow your child some time every day without TV, video games, schedules, lessons.  Allow them the opportunity to choose a quiet activity, on their own, to enjoy a break from the overwhelming sensory input with which we now live.  Allow your child a few minutes’ peace, and you may get to enjoy some peace as well!